April 20, 2017

Q. In the third set, you started well. You were up 4-1. What happened then?
ANDY MURRAY: At 4-0, one of the service games where I got broken, I didn't play such a good game. Then he obviously started playing better, you know, towards the end of the set. I still had a bunch of chances. I guess both of us did really. I think at 4-All, he had Love-40, too.

Yeah, certainly struggled a bit at the end of the match.

Q. Are you going to be less tough on yourself after this loss because it was your first match on clay, or are you pretty disappointed?
ANDY MURRAY: Look, I'm disappointed to lose from the position that I was in. I mean, if you sort of look at the scoreline, it was 7-5 in the third. One week ago I would have been okay with that. But sitting here, being 4-Love up in the third, I haven't lost many matches like that in my career.

I'm disappointed. I feel like I had enough chances to win. I was close, I think. At 5-4, I had a chance in that game, as well.

Obviously disappointed to lose. But yeah, I mean, maybe tomorrow or a day after I'll be able to look back a little bit and think where I'm at now from where I was a week ago.

My elbow felt pretty good. I served much better today than I did yesterday. That's only going to get better. So hopefully I keep going in the right direction.

Q. What do you feel you struggled with in particular today?
ANDY MURRAY: Well, I didn't struggle for large parts of the match. Obviously the second set wasn't particularly good. In the third, I wasn't struggling with how I was hitting the ball. I was hitting the ball clean.

But again, when you play on a new surface, you haven't played many matches for a while, you sometimes lose the right way to play. You can be hitting the ball great, but you're not hitting it in the right places.

That's, you know, an important part of my game, is playing the correct way in terms of tactics, hitting the ball in the right spots. I don't hit the ball as hard as a lot of the guys. I normally beat guys by maneuvering them around the court rather than blasting them off the court.

A few times today, I made some bad decisions. That's something that, with my team, I'll look at, watch some parts of the match over, see the shots that I chose and what I would do differently.

Q. Any chance to think about the plans now? Budapest or Barcelona?
ANDY MURRAY: I don't know actually. I mean, I'll speak to my team a little bit about that. I need to decide now, yeah, whether I go and try to get matches or whether I try to get myself in better shape physically, put as much work in as I can.

If I was to play Budapest or Barcelona, and do well, I would not really have a chance to train much between now and the French Open. Whereas if I wasn't to play next week, I get the chance to put in some hard work, which is maybe what's needed.

I had to go a little bit easy when I first came back from the elbow, whereas now I'm ready to really I think put in some hard work as well. I need to chat to my team about that.

Q. Where would you do that? Back home?
ANDY MURRAY: Good question. I'm not sure. If I don't play a tournament, I definitely would get to Madrid early. So I would do some of that there.

My father-in-law is running the marathon on Sunday, so I may be at home for that. But, yeah, I'm not sure. I mean, I haven't spoken about that with my team yet, but we'll talk about it tonight or tomorrow morning. Obviously I need to make a decision whether I play next week pretty soon, by Friday evening.

Q. How was your elbow before you arrived here? Did you decide to come to Monte-Carlo even if you weren't in very good shape?
ANDY MURRAY: Well, I mean, I wasn't going to play if I didn't feel like I could serve properly. I started serving my sort of full speed, like, on Friday, Saturday. It's good. For me that's a positive thing from this week.

Obviously disappointed with the result today. But I played for two and a half hours. I hit a lot of serves, a lot more than I've been doing in practice. My elbow feels good. It felt better today than it did yesterday. That's great.

But, yeah, I mean, I wasn't sure until sort of Thursday, Friday if I was going to play or not. Wasn't until I had to start serving full power before I did decide anything. My elbow's been really good. I'm happy about that.

Q. It's not a question about the tournament, but about Serena Williams. She said she's pregnant, and she wants to come back next year. Do you think she's able to do it?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, why not? Obviously I'd imagine it's difficult and will take a lot of hard work. But I think if the desire is there to do it, she's obviously an incredible athlete, probably the greatest tennis player ever. Yeah, I mean, if anyone can, I'd imagine it would be her.

Just depends how much she wants to do it.

Q. Do you think today it was somehow mental, the fact that when you were up 4-0 you lost some sort of lucidity, strategies, or not? Tiredness? I don't know.
ANDY MURRAY: I think, you know, at that stage of the match, physically I felt okay. Towards the very end, I was feeling tired. When I was up 4-Love, I felt great. Certainly wasn't that period of the match.

But, yeah, I spoke to my team before the tournament. They were saying, You have to remember on clay, the matches, they can be a bit more up and down than on the other surfaces because you're not getting as many free points on serve, you know, to be ready for that. I was ready for it, but unfortunately I wasn't able to do what I wanted to today.

Yesterday I was 5-4 down, Muller serving for the first set. I won, like, 15 or 16 of the next 17 points in a row. Those things can happen a little bit more on clay.

I should have been able to do enough to sort of weather that storm a little bit and finish the match off.

Q. Did you consider going for the run with your father-in-law, after the scare in Australia, keeping an eye on him, hoping he's healthy at all?
ANDY MURRAY: What do you mean? To do the run with him?

Q. Yes.
ANDY MURRAY: No, no. I didn't.

Q. He's in good health?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah. Well, he seems to be. If he's doing the marathon at 60, he's in decent shape (smiling).